When the body of man is found in a canal, damaged by the tides, carrying no wallet, and wearing only one shoe, Brunetti has little to work with. No local has filed a missing-person report, and no hotel guests have disappeared. Where was the crime scene? And how can Brunetti identify the man when he can’t show pictures of his face? The autopsy shows a way forward: It turns out the man was suffering from a rare, disfiguring disease.

Drawing Conclusions: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery

Late one night, Commissario Guido Brunetti's telefonino rings. A woman's body has been found in a Spartan apartment on Campo San Giacomo dell'Orio. Brunetti sees some signs of force on the old woman, but they could just as easily have been from the radiator near where she fell. When the medical examiner rules that the woman died of a heart attack, it seems there is nothing to investigate.

The Golden Egg: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery, Book 22

In The Golden Egg, as the first leaves of autumn begin to fall, Vice Questore Patta asks Brunetti to look into a minor violation committed by the mayor’s future daughter-in-law. Brunetti has no interest in helping his boss amass political favors, but he has little choice but to comply. Then Brunetti’s wife, Paola, comes to him with a request of her own. The mentally handicapped man who worked at their dry cleaners has just died of a sleeping pill overdose, and Paola loathes the idea that he lived and died without anyone noticing him, or helping him.

By Its Cover: Commissario Guido Brunetti, Book 23

One afternoon, Commissario Guido Brunetti gets a frantic call from the director of a prestigious Venetian library. Someone has stolen pages out of several rare books. After a round of questioning, the case seems clear: The culprit must be the man who requested the volumes, an American professor from a Kansas university. The only problem-- the man fled the library earlier that day, and after checking his credentials, the American professor doesn't exist.

A Question of Belief: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery

Commissario Guido Brunetti must contend with ingenious corruption, bureaucratic intransigence, and the stifling heat of a Venetian summer. As he plans a trip to the mountains with his family, he learns that cases at the local court - hardly known as a model of efficiency - are being delayed to the benefit of one of the parties. A creative new trick for corrupting the system, perhaps, but what can Brunetti do about it?

About Face

The polluted waters of the canals in Venice are an ever-present issue; but environmental concerns become significant in Commissario Guido Brunetti's work when an investigator from the Carabiniere - looking into the illegal hauling of garbage - asks for a favor. But the investigator is not the only one with a special request.

The Girl of His Dreams

On a rainy morning, not long after the funeral of his mother, Commissario Brunetti and Ispettore Vianello respond to a 911 call reporting a body floating near the steps in one of Venice's side canals. Reaching down to pull it out, Brunetti's wrist is caught by the silkiness of golden hair, and he sees a small foot - together he and Vianello lift a dead girl from the water.

Blood from a Stone

On a cold Venetian night, shortly before Christmas, a street vendor is killed in a scuffle in Campo San Stefano. The closest witnesses are the tourists who had been browsing the man's wares: fake handbags of every designer label. The dead man had been working as a vu cumpra, one of the many African immigrants purveying goods outside normal shop hours and without work permits. Commissario Brunetti's response is that of everybody involved: why would anyone kill an illegal immigrant?

Through a Glass, Darkly

On a spring day in Venice, Commissario Brunetti and his assistant, Vianello, play hooky to help Vianello's friend Marco Ripetti, arrested during an environmental protest. They secure his release, only to be faced with the fury of the man's father-in-law, Giovanni De Cal, who has made violent threats against Ripetti. Brunetti's curiousity is peaked, and he finds himself drawn to investigate. Is De Cal the type of man to carry out his threats?

Falling in Love

Donna Leon's Death at La Fenice, the first novel in her beloved Commissario Guido Brunetti series, introduced listeners to the glamorous and cutthroat world of opera and one of Italy's finest living sopranos, Flavia Petrelli - then a suspect in the poisoning of a renowned German conductor. Years after Brunetti cleared her name, Flavia has returned to Venice and La Fenice to sing the lead in Tosca.

A Sea of Troubles: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery

On a beautiful spring morning on the island of Pellestrina, south of the Lido on the Venetian lagoon, a small fishing boat moored at the docks suddenly explodes. When it becomes clear that the fire was deliberately set and the boat’s owners brutally murdered, Commissario Brunetti tries to dig up information from Pellestrina’s close-knit - and closemouthed - citizenry. But it is with mixed feelings that he accepts Signorina Elettra’s offer to visit her relatives there and search for clues.

Fatal Remedies: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery

Commissario Guido Brunetti's career is under threat when his professional and personal lives unexpectedly intersect. In the chill of the Venetian dawn, a sudden act of vandalism shatters the quiet of the deserted city, and Brunetti is shocked to find that the culprit waiting to be apprehended at the scene is a member of his own family. Meanwhile, he is also under pressure from his superiors to solve a daring robbery with connections to a suspicious accidental death. Could the two crimes be connected? And will Brunetti be able to prove his family's innocence before it's too late?

Suffer the Little Children

When Commissario Brunetti is summoned in the middle of the night to the hospital bed of a pediatrician, he is confronted with more questions than answers. Three men, a young carabiniere captain and two privates from out of town, burst into the doctor's apartment while the family was sleeping, attacked him, and took away his 18-month-old boy. What could have motivated an assault by the forces of the state that was so violent it has left the doctor mute?

Doctored Evidence

Against the atmospheric backdrop of the city of Venice, Brunetti finds himself fighting a lone battle to prove the innocence of a Romanian housekeeper accused of brutally murdering her miserly employer. With the odds stacked against her from the onset of the investigation when she fled from police, her guilt seems a fait accompli...until a neighbor comes forward to protest the innocence of the accused.

Uniform Justice

When Venetian detective Commissario Guido Brunetti is called to investigate a presumed suicide in Venice's elite military academy, his inquiries are immediately met with a wall of silence. The young man is the son of a doctor and former politician, a man of an impeccable integrity all too rare in Italian politics. Dr. Moro seems devastated by his son's death, but is not eager to talk to the police.

The Jewels of Paradise

Caterina Pellegrini is a native Venetian, and like so many of them, she’s had to leave home to pursue her career elsewhere, mostly abroad. With a doctorate in baroque opera from Vienna, she lands in Birmingham, England, as a research fellow and assistant professor. Birmingham, however, is no Venice, so when she gets word of a position back home, Caterina jumps at the opportunity. The job is an unusual one.

Friends in High Places: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery, Book 9

In Friends in High Places, Commissario Guido Brunetti is visited by a young bureaucrat investigating the lack of approval for the construction of Brunetti's apartment years before. What began as a red-tape headache ends in murder when the bureaucrat is later found dead after a mysterious fall from a scaffold. Brunetti starts an investigation that will take him into the unfamiliar and dangerous areas of drug abuse and loan-sharking, and will reveal, once again, what a difference it makes in Venice to have friends in high places.

Willful Behavior: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery

Mystery lovers everywhere are addicted to Donna Leon's ever-honorable Commissario Guido Brunetti and her portrayal of Venice's beautiful but sinister byways and canals. In Willful Behavior, Brunetti is approached for a favor by one of his wife's students. Intelligent and serious, Claudia Leonardo asks for his help in obtaining a pardon for a crime once committed by her now-dead grandfather.

Death and Judgment: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery

A truck crashes and spills its dangerous cargo on a treacherous road in the Italian Dolomite mountains. Meanwhile, in Santa Lucia, a prominent international lawyer is found dead aboard an intercity train. Suspecting a connection between the two tragedies, Commissario Guido Brunetti digs deep for an answer, stumbling upon a seedy Venetian bar that holds the key to a crime network that reaches far beyond the laguna.

Dressed for Death

Commissario Guido Brunetti's hopes for a refreshing family holiday in the mountains are once again dashed when a gruesome discovery is made in Marghera--a body so badly beaten the face is completely unrecognizable. Brunetti searches Venice for someone who can identify the corpse but is met with a wall of silence. He then receives a telephone call from a contact who promises some tantalizing information.

The Children Return

Bruno, chief of police in the French town of St. Denis, is already busy with a case when the body of an undercover French Muslim cop is found in the woods, a man who had called Bruno for help only hours earlier. But Bruno's sometime boss and rival, the Brigadier, doesn't see this investigation as a priority - there are bigger issues at stake. Bruno has other ideas.

Gondola

Of all the trademarks of Venice - and there are many, from the gilded Basilica of San Marco to the melancholy Bridge of Sighs - none is more ubiquitous than the gondola. The internationally acclaimed "American with the Venetian heart," Donna Leon, tells its fascinating story (The Washington Post). First used in medieval Venice as a deftly maneuverable getaway boat, the gondola evolved over the centuries into a floating pleasure palace, bedecked in silk, that facilitated the romantic escapades of the Venetian elite.

The Snack Thief

When an elderly man is stabbed to death in an elevator and a crewman on an Italian fishing trawler is machine-gunned by a Tunisian patrol boat off Sicily's coast, only Inspector Montalbano, with his keen insight into human nature, suspects the link between the two incidents. His investigation leads to the beautiful Karima, an impoverished housecleaner and occasional prostitute, whose young son steals other schoolchildren's midmorning snacks.

The Nature of the Beast: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel

Hardly a day goes by when nine-year-old Laurent Lepage doesn't cry wolf. From alien invasions to walking trees to winged beasts in the woods to dinosaurs spotted in the village of Three Pines, his tales are so extraordinary no one can possibly believe him. Including Armand and Reine-Marie Gamache, who now live in the little Quebec village.

Publisher's Summary

When the body of man is found in a canal, damaged by the tides, carrying no wallet, and wearing only one shoe, Brunetti has little to work with. No local has filed a missing-person report, and no hotel guests have disappeared. Where was the crime scene? And how can Brunetti identify the man when he can’t show pictures of his face?

The autopsy shows a way forward: It turns out the man was suffering from a rare, disfiguring disease. With Inspector Vianello, Brunetti canvasses shoe stores, and winds up on the mainland in Mestre, outside of his usual sphere. From a shopkeeper, they learn that the man had a kindly way with animals. At the same time, animal rights and meat consumption are quickly becoming preoccupying issues at the Venice Questura, and in Brunetti’s home, where conversation at family meals offer a window into the joys and conflicts of Italian life. Perhaps with the help of Signorina Elettra, Brunetti and Vianello can identify the man and understand why someone wanted him dead.

As subtle and engrossing as ever, Leon’s Beastly Things is immensely enjoyable, intriguing, and ultimately moving.

I have been fan of Leon for years and this book didn't disappoint! It is a solid Brunetti book. If you haven't read any of Leon's books I suggest you start with book one since it is a series where the characters (especially Signorina Elettra and Vianello) developing over time. If you have read Brunetti before and disliked his ending I will tell you that this one is more satisfying than usual.

...but still an enjoyable read/listen.The story seemed a little thin to me, but I'd still recommend it to a friend.The regular characters are great as usual, but my admiration of Brunetti was knocked down just a notch when he admired a pair of Tasseled Loafers in a shop window. Tasseled Loafers! Come on Guido, loafers are bad enough, but Tasseled Loafers - yuck!

The narration by David Colacci was stellar, as usual. He's one of the best narrators in the business.

Where does Beastly Things rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This is one of Leon's better titles and they are all superb. Her nuanced plot lines and well researched understanding of current social problems all woven into an interest holding mystery make for wonderful reading. The stars of the show are always Commissario Brunnetti, and Venice itself. A wonderful pair which keep readers coming back.

Yes, I love this series and the narrator is perfect. This story is the most recent I have read or listened to and the characters continue to evolve. I missed having more about the Brunetti family - those scenes are almost always my favorite in the books.

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

Not this time. It was apparent to me fairly early on what the motive for the crime was and the likely murderer. I still enjoyed watching the unraveling.

Which scene was your favorite?

Favorite scene was the funeral very near the end. It brought a tear of compassion to my eye. It was a lovely and fitting tribute to the departed.

On the flip side, it was very difficult for me to get though the scene at the slaughter house. I am not sure why Brunetti felt they needed the complete tour - perhaps the author wanted to ensure she drove a few readers to become vegetarians.

Any additional comments?

If you have an idiot boss or work with well intentioned but incompetent colleagues, you will recognize the world of Guido Brunetti, even if you are not a commissario in the Venetian police. If you are as elegant, smart and clever as Signorina Elettra, well, I am simply envious beyond words!

This was my first listen to a Guido Brunetti mystery, and for the most part, I liked it. It had just enough humor and diversity of characters, although they weren't very deeply developed..

The story was so-so, and would have been rather dull, were it not a potentially very real insight into our food chain. Everything is a business, so that's how sick and unfit animals get into the slaughterhouses and eventually onto our tables. Brunetti's laid-back approach and search for the truth seems to be a personal, not departmental, procedure. With all the bad press of Italian courts lately, This provides an interesting perspective.

The book wasn't "pithy", and a bit of a disappointment, in hindsight. It was relatively short, and had relatively little action. The main character is entertaining, but I think I'll wait awhile before I spend a credit on trying another of these books.

Yes. I'd recommend it because I just love all the stories about Commissario Brunetti. The descriptions of Venice just make the storyline even better. Probably wouldn't be as interesting if it took place somewhere else in Italy. It wasn't my favorite book in this series but it is still very readable.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Commissario Brunetti, of course. He is always engaging, complicated, and cerebral. His affection for his wife and kids just make him a better detective although in this book he doesn't get to demonstrate his love for his family as much as he has in earlier books.

What about David Colacci’s performance did you like?

His performance was very good. He depicts the characters well.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No extreme reaction. I thought the book was a little slow but still engaging.

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